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Schools toss aside texts for e-books

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dragon wench
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Schools toss aside texts for e-books

Post by dragon wench »

I can see the advantages here.. but there's something about this that doesn't seem right. Maybe I'm just a dinosaur, or a romantic :o



Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | News: Education


N. Texas districts switching to paperless editions say they're easier to update, quicker to get

02:15 PM CST on Saturday, November 4, 2006

By KATHY A. GOOLSBY / The Dallas Morning News


First it was Dick and Jane readers, then typewriters, then reel-to-reel film projectors. Now another American education icon may be disappearing: the hardbound textbook. More and more school districts are replacing traditional textbooks with electronic versions, and a few have opted to eliminate textbooks altogether.

Electronic textbooks are usually accessed either through an online server or are downloaded to student laptops.

In North Texas, Plano and Irving schools are introducing e-books into a few classrooms, and Lancaster school officials also are considering them. A portion of the $215 million school bond package before Lancaster voters on Tuesday is earmarked for student laptops, the first step in the process.

"Midland is moving away from textbooks entirely and using online resources," said Anita Givens, director of instruction materials and educational technology at the Texas Education Agency. "In some classrooms, teachers give students traditional textbooks to keep at home, and they use online books or other resources at school."

But no local district appears to be going as far as Forney.

School officials there hope most students will be using only electronic textbooks within two years. The plan, already being tested in one Forney school, also depends on passage Tuesday of a school bond package that provides $11.8 million for laptops and system upgrades.

The district most likely would be the first in the state to use e-books in every classroom for grades five to 12, Ms. Givens said.

"There are some districts doing this maybe in a class or two, but not 100 percent," Ms. Givens said. "If other districts are doing it this wide scale, they're being awfully quiet about it."

Philadelphia's School of the Future, designed by Bill Gates' Microsoft crew, recently opened without textbooks – hardback or electronic – as did a new high school in Vail, near Tucson, Ariz.

Officials cite several reasons for converting to e-books. For one, they are easier to update, said Alice Owens, executive director of technology at Irving Independent School District.

"One of the issues around textbooks is once they're published, they can't be changed, and in Texas those books are on an eight- to 10-year cycle," Dr. Owens said. "We're pushing publishers to find ways to do online textbooks so they can go back and change information."

Forney officials cite one social studies book that still names the late Ann Richards as Texas' governor. School trustees there also believe using e-books will better prepare students for college and the workplace, said Roger Geiger, Forney ISD's technology director.

Rapid district growth is another reason to switch textbook format, said Jennie Moore, Forney's communications manager. Enrollment in the 6,100-student district is expected to double within five years, she said.

"We've grown so fast, we haven't been able to get the textbooks we need for all our students," Ms. Moore said.

It's difficult to gauge textbook needs in advance, she said, and some students wait months for their books. But e-books can be uploaded onto a "blank" laptop in a few hours.
No big savings yet

Cost may eventually be a deciding factor for choosing e-books, but officials said there's no significant savings yet. Districts still give the Texas Education Agency a student head count, and the state orders books from the publishers based on that number.

It's up to the district to tell the publisher in what form they want to receive the books, Ms. Givens said.

"Even if they get it electronically, we still have to pay for the book because we're buying the instructional material," she said. "That may change as more and more districts move toward e-books, but right now the process is the same."

E-books also are becoming popular among university students, said David Hakensen, a spokesman for Pearson Education, publisher of Prentice Hall textbooks. The company offers many online college textbooks, which students obtain through a subscription service.

"It's about 50 percent the cost of buying a book in hardback form," Mr. Hakensen said. "They don't have to worry about trying to sell it back, and at the end of the semester their subscription just expires."

Today's students have little trouble adjusting to laptops and e-books, said Connie Cooley, who has taught economics and psychology at the Academy of Irving ISD for five years. But she said it can intimidate teachers.

"It's harder for people who are right around my age and older," said Ms. Cooley, 36. "I'm computer-savvy, so I was ready for it, but those that aren't are a little apprehensive."

This is her first year to use an e-book, and uncertainty compelled her to order hardback versions for the students to keep at home. Next year, Ms. Cooley said she will eliminate the take-home economics textbook.
Forney's switch

Dawn Drake, a sixth-grade science teacher, came to Forney this year because she wanted to teach using e-books. She was a teacher's aide for two years before getting her teacher certification last year, but she had no experience teaching with an e-book.

The Forney ISD initiative started as a pilot program with two grades at Johnson Elementary, with fifth- and sixth-graders gradually making the switch to e-books. This year the 160 students access all their textbooks with a click of a mouse.

Teachers keep a classroom set of each of the six books, but the stacks do little more than collect dust.

"If somebody accidentally cut an electric line, we might have to use them," said Ms. Drake, 39.

The district pays $895 for each laptop, which probably will need replacing every four years. Each laptop weighs about six pounds, about the same as one sixth-grade science book.

"I thought it was really cool because we usually have to carry all these books," said Stephanie Earlywine, 11. "This is a lot lighter than the books."

Last month, Ms. Drake's students used their laptops to create PowerPoint presentations on the dangers of drugs and alcohol. Their science e-book became a jumping-off point by directing them to related Web sites and interactive activities.

"It's better to have an e-book because it's easier to flip from page to page," said Hunter Blair, 11, as he worked alongside Travis Coltharp, also 11.

"The day I came home with my laptop in fifth grade, I made two PowerPoints," Travis said. "I kind of just played around with it until I figured it out."

It's that kind of experience that makes e-books so exciting, Ms. Drake said.

"I love the opportunities and the broader picture they get with e-books," she said. "The more they do here, the better they'll do when they get out of school."
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Post by Bloodstalker »

I HATE e-books for educational institutions. I just had to do a paper on Caligula contrasting several sources that were provided through the college library online for convenience. Of course, what no one had told the professor or me was that while the e-books are veiwable online, they only have a single copy that can only be viewed in fifteen minute sessions. After that, it logs you out and you have to start over with a new session...inconvenient but not undoable I thought. Of course I spent the next couple days after my initial session timed out getting told that the text was currently "checked out" by someone else. Basically, only one person could view any text at one time, and then for only fifteen minutes after which you have to hope no one else jumps ahead of you before you can re-open it. It was the most frustrating experience I have ever had with any paper in my entire college career.

I also am a dinosaur in that I hate e-books and would much rather have a text I can flip through in my hand.
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Post by Magrus »

@ BS, That would drive me absolutely insane. :speech: I can read fast, and in any direction the text happens to be faced. However, regardless of that, if I am reading for educational purposes, I tend to scan through quickly, and then slowly go back through parts that I didn't quite grasp on my initial reading. Given most experiences with reading for classes tend to take a good chunk of time being longer than a 10 pages a pop I would go full out psycho on the dumb person who made a set-up like that.

As for the actual content of the article, I have to say, I am not surprised this is happening. If the finances can be come by easily, and the problems like BS mentioned above fixed, it might be much better on the environment. As well as easier on students. I remember lugging around an 80 pound book-bag all through high school because they didn't give me enough time to go from one end of the school to the other to get to my locker, and then back to the original end of the school to get to my next class. :rolleyes: It's hell on your back trying to lug something that weighs 2/3 your weight when hustling down a hall-way and dodging 300 other students doing the same thing.

However, my first thought was "We now have the option of e-book learning for your children at our schools! Next week, we vote on the proposed %25 school tax increase to cover the computers we'll need to purchase for every classroom!" I mean, realistically, you can get a crappy PC that just handles text with a mouse, keyboard, and a $50 moniter. Still, that would be at least $300 a pop to get a copy of windows, all of the hardware, in addition to the electrical costs sky-rocketing to having an extra 30 PC's running 8 hours a day per classroom.

I'll have to ask my older step-brother if his taxes go up this next year, he still lives near to Dallas, just a bit south and west of there now if I am not out of date.
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Post by Mr_Snow »

Maybe it's my eyes, but I find it a mental strain reading lots of pages of text on-line.

It's much easier to read hundreds of pages in a book you hold in your hand.
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Post by dragon wench »

I think, beyond the eyestrain... it just feels wrong.
No matter what I'm reading, whether it is for educational purposes or leisure.. I like to curl up with it in a comfortable chair, pencil and/or highlighter in hand. Laptops just don't lend themselves well to that sort of thing.
Granted...we're talking kids here and not adults, but as B.S' story demonstrates... ebooks are clearly becoming manifest in universities too.

The other thing is, and I'm guessing this is at least partly because of the technology (or lack thereof) that I've been trained with... but I think better with hard copy, pencil and paper. Although I've written essays on computers for a long time, I still need that first step of sitting there and jotting down notes as I read over research material. That is the critical stage where all my ideas really spring up and I start making connections etc.
I simply cannot do this on a computer.
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Post by fable »

Heh. You Luddites! ;) More seriously, I like the Web for its ability to provide comparative readings and commentaries in selected texts, when available. One problem is that the texts are seldom available, and another is that the sources can be corrupt, for a variety of reasons (some of them quite deliberate). From the perspective of ease-of-use, nothing quite approaches having a printed copy of your own. Then you're no longer at the mercy of a server, or a laptop, or a website, or any suitable energy source except yourself.
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Post by Philos »

Maybe it's my eyes, but I find it a mental strain reading lots of pages of text on-line.

It's much easier to read hundreds of pages in a book you hold in your hand.
Not just your eyes Mr. Snow, pretty much everyone. My optomitrist said that reading anything on a computer screen is much harder on the eyes. When reading a regular book you are looking at an object that is illuminated indirectly by surrounding light. When you are reading on a computer the light source is bombarding your eyes directly and will cause eye strain much faster. Since I have to use a computer a lot at work he gave me a few recommendations, look away frequently, get up and leave the screen completely about every 30-40 minutes, and use eye drops every so often. I can almost see the law suits in the near future forming on the horizon. "My eyes are so bad because of school making me use a computer." :rolleyes:

My reading time slows horribly with reading anything of length on a computer. I think it is much more restrictive. You are limited to usually one page or picture at a time on the screen. No matter how fast your computer may be you cannot change pages as fast as you can by flipping a regular book's pages. If I am doing a comparision between two sections, it is so easy to simply put my fingers in both spots and flip back and forth. Waiting for a page to load is bad enought but to then try to go back to another page and let it load, then go back to the first would be maddening. Also when a paragraph in a book continues on the next page it is irritating to have stop and let the computer load the next page.

Trying to find an idea you read 50 or 60 pages back. In a normal book, I'd just quickly flip back through the pages till I found the spot. Most search engines in documents and books are so cumbersome and hard to use it is ridiculous. Seems like you have to know "exactly" what you are looking for or it sends you on a merry goose chasing going through every closely related reference. Big waste of time, IMO. No search engine is designed to function like a mind does and simply can't be as quick or efficient as being able to quickly scan through an actual book like a human to find what you're looking for.
When I have long document to deal with at work I end up printing the thing out so I can more easily read through it and digest it.

Give me a real book any day!!
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